Stand by Your Man

It's challenging enough bringing up a feisty three-year-old on your own and holding down an architect's job in a rural community you've only recently joined, but now Alice has also been plunged in at the deep end of the local Garden Society's latest ambitious project. Thanks to Leila, a bossy neighbour, even newer to the village than she is, Alice has been designated the Village Garden Designer - despite having no known horticultural experience. How has this happened? Leila is one of those women who must be obeyed. Ask her husband Charles. She isn't just an Alpha Woman, she's an Alpha Bitch. Leila assumes the Garden Society is hers to command. Crusty villagers, fonder of runner beans and rhubarb, are summoned to eat sushi and mingle with Leila's advertising cohorts from London - while Alice and her friend Molly speculate when the compost and the raw fish will hit the fan. Toddlers and jelly loom large in Gil McNeil's engaging rural drama. So do extreme bad behaviour, romance and gardening advice. McNeil zeros in unerringly on home truths of being a young mother, not to mention the fact that a man only has to walk down the street pushing a buggy to be deemed a public hero.